QMIT Launch
Good morning everyone!
We have an incredible program today as we launch MIT’s new quantum initiative, QMIT.
And I’m delighted to introduce a special guest to help us kick things off: Governor Maura Healey.
An advocate for research and innovation across Massachusetts, Governor Healey is leading efforts in AI, climate technology, advanced manufacturing and the life sciences.
And through a range of efforts focused on research, development and workforce training, she’s strengthening our state’s position as a global leader in quantum technology.
She’s also an enthusiastic supporter of MIT, and it’s a great pleasure to have her with us again on campus.
Please join me in offering a warm welcome to Governor Maura Healey.
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Thank you, Danna [Faculty Director Danna Freedman], for sharing your vision for QMIT and for your deep commitment to bending the trajectory of quantum toward impact. And thanks to Ian Waitz, Anantha Chandrakasan and Nergis Mavalvala for championing this new initiative.
QMIT has grown out of decades of MIT leadership in quantum science and engineering, and it’s impossible to pinpoint one single defining moment in that rich history.
A helpful reference point is the summer of 1981, when MIT hosted the first Physics of Computation Conference. It gathered nearly 50 top researchers in physics and computing to explore the promise of quantum for computation – and amounted to the unofficial kickoff to enabling real quantum applications.
Over the next 45 years, MIT researchers have broken record after record in pushing the capabilities of quantum materials, sensing, computing, algorithms and communication…working across all five schools, the college and Lincoln Laboratory.
Many of you right here in this room have made critical contributions that brought us to this moment: a new initiative that spans the Institute.
There isn’t a more important technological field right now than quantum, with its enormous potential for impact on both fundamental research and practical problems. And we built QMIT on a foundation of problem-driven missions, which are designed to thrive in shared intellectual spaces – and ultimately, in a shared physical space.
QMIT will help us ask the right questions, identify the most critical problems, and create a roadmap for developing quantum solutions that are both transformative and accessible.
Because even as we continue to navigate a challenging landscape for higher education, the world continues to look to MIT to invent the future of technology.
I’m thrilled you’re all here as we set out together to invent the future of quantum.
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And I’m delighted to introduce the two quantum pioneers who will kick off our program, Jay Gambetta and Hartmut Neven.
Both are dedicated to moving quantum computing beyond theoretical concepts to practical, large-scale applications, and we’ve invited them here to share their unique insights on the best way to get there.
So just a few words of introduction:
Jay Gambetta is Director of Research at IBM and an IBM Fellow. He oversees global strategy and initiatives in quantum computing, AI, hybrid cloud and semiconductors. He previously served as vice president of IBM Quantum and was named an IBM Fellow in 2018 for his work to advance superconducting quantum computing technologies and shape IBM’s strategy to bring quantum computing to the world.
Under his leadership, IBM has launched the first cloud-based quantum platform; developed Qiskit, an open-source quantum software stack; and built partnerships with more than 300 organizations.
Hartmut Neven is the founder and lead of Google Quantum AI and a Vice President of Engineering at Google. In 2007, he implemented the first image recognition algorithms on a quantum computer. In 2019, his team demonstrated that a quantum computer could solve computational problems intractable for classical machines.
More recently, in 2024, the Quantum AI team solved a 30-year challenge by implementing successful quantum error correction with their Willow chip.
These short sketches only begin to convey what Jay and Hartmut have accomplished, so now we’ll let them speak for themselves. First individually, and then in conversation with another quantum pioneer who is well known to us at MIT: Ike Chuang.
I know you’re eager to hear from all three of them, so let’s get started.